Should we do yoga daily? Should we do the same things, at the same time, for the same length of time, daily? What about meditation? What does research evidence have to say about optimal exercise and movement for health & wellbeing? Is yoga alone ‘enough’?
TLDR? I encourage you: to look up research-based guidelines on the amount and types of exercise someone your age needs; to practise yoga & meditation in ways which are positive for you and fit into your lifestyle; not to build mental models of ‘ideal practice’ and beat yourself up if you can’t achieve your imagined gold standard; to bear in mind the research on sedentary lives, biomechanics, natural movement…and as a consequence, to build more walking and other small movement breaks in throughout your days; and to remember that if you do what you enjoy, you’re much more likely to keep doing it.
My draft of this post got well and truly overtaken by family, national and global events. I’m going to post it anyway, although my personal practice the last three weeks has of necessity been quite different. I’ll do a follow-up post this month on my ‘lockdown practice’.
People often ask me about home or personal practice in ways which suggest they think it’s something particular, mystical, special, time-consuming and hard to do. They seem to be concerned they might “do it wrong”. Those of you who come regularly to my classes know I focus on building people’s confidence to identify and practise what is useful for them as an individual, in class, and also at home, should they want to practise at home. And if you click on this website’s Tag Cloud (try the tags: personal yoga practice, personal pilates practice, home practice, daily meditation, developing new habits) you’ll find various contributions from me and others who practise at home, which will hopefully help, reassure and inspire you.
Today, I’m going to talk you through what my own personal practice has looked like this week. In the course of doing this, I hope at least in part to answer some of these questions and concerns.
Please don’t feel daunted if you read on and it seems I’m doing much more than you could – remember my capacity to teach yoga and Pilates absolutely depends on my health and fitness, and that has made me prioritise it. I find this ironic, since of course ALL of our work and personal lives depend on our health and wellbeing. Despite knowing this at a rational, intellectual level, in the past, I nevertheless often felt “I’m just far too busy to exercise/meditate” – and went on and on being busy, having back pain, catching every cold going, feeling stressed… I am definitely a more calm and healthy person, even in busy times, since I made it a priority to exercise and relax!
Monday. This was the last day of our week’s holiday. We had various admin tasks to do and went on a local day trip too. I did half an hour’s personal practice – 15mins seated meditation, and 15mins specific ankle strengthening exercises, prescribed by a physiotherapist. I aggravated a tendon in my ankle last summer, with a combination of hours of fence painting (lots of squatting and kneeling) at the same time as beginning a ‘couch to 10k’ running programme with the local running club. It was never agonising, but it was niggling on and on, and not really responding totally to rest, changes of footwear, etc. – so I sought expert advice, which I feel is always worth investing in. Interestingly, although I am not flexible like a ‘typical’ yoga teacher, I apparently have much more mobile ankles than average, and a tendency to tendinopathy goes along with that… This discussion with the physio reminded me that around the age of 11-13 I sprained my ankles several times – bad enough that I was taken for an x-ray at least once to see whether I’d broken an ankle. I hadn’t thought about this in decades. Anyway, I’m now on a long slow haul to progressively strengthen my tibialis posterior and generally future proof my ankles as much as possible!
Today I also did as a home practice the yoga class plan I would be teaching on Tuesday afternoon. What takes 90mins to teach a class generally takes 30-45mins when I know all the content and am doing it alone at home. I did this in the evening, just before dinner…which is one of my absolute favourite times to practise – especially when someone else is cooking the dinner while I practise!
Tuesday. I attended a Pilates class 9.30-10.30am with Sarah Hunt. Sarah is a very experienced Pilates instructor and in January I started teaching a class at her studio. Because I did not teach Pilates during 2019, I wanted to get back into the swing of it by attending classes – last year I went to both Sarah’s and those of another local teacher, Rachel Martindale, and last weekend I attended a professional development weekend with another senior Body Control Pilates teacher, Birthe Brosolat. Good professional training is vital, but I also love to attend regular weekly classes. Sometimes when instructors know you are a yoga and Pilates teacher, they leave you to your own devices in a general class setting, trusting that you know what you’re doing (or perhaps concerned that you may be offended if they ‘correct’ you?). I really value when a teacher pays me, as well as everyone else, individual attention, and suggests tiny improvements which make a big difference. I feel if a teacher doesn’t give you any individual guidance or feedback in a class, you’re as well to save yourself the extra time and money spent going to the class by using free online resources, or a book or DVD, at home.
The morning Pilates class was a good preparation for teaching 90mins of yoga in the middle of the day. I also did my half hour at home – 15mins seated meditation practice and 15mins physio. This was done about 9.30-10pm at night, which is much later than I like doing it, but it was either doing it then or skipping it altogether.
Wednesday. I did my half hour of seated meditation and physio exercises at 9am. It didn’t feel ideal doing it only 12hrs after the last time. My ideal – which I pretty much never actually do, unless I’m on a week long retreat – would be to do my yoga and meditation practice at the same time every day. When I was much younger, I used to set myself unrealistic targets such as an hour or more of yoga, first thing in the morning before work. Inevitably, I couldn’t sustain this over time, and would give up, feeling inadequate and weak-willed. During the last 9 years or so, I’ve completely stopped this daft cycle. I build small movements and stretches into my day as I need them (have you noticed this is what all other mammals do? Watch your cat or dog when they wake up and decide it’s time to get moving). I aim to have a daily personal practice, which I will fit in to whatever part of the day I can manage to do it. I know I feel best if I can do at least an hour’s practice, but if it has to be much shorter, so be it. I know it’s great to meditate at the end of a physical yoga asana practice, but generally I am much more likely to get it done if I do a separate seated meditation session. I spent years trying to meditate for at least 20mins a day, not very successfully, because I somehow couldn’t find the time – then I stumbled upon the fact that if I tell myself I’m only meditating for 10mins, I’m much more likely to fit it in. And once I’ve started, it most often ends up being at least 15mins. If your life is busy – children, animals, work at varying and sometimes anti-social hours, a spouse with different and varying work hours, etc. – it can be really helpful to let go of the ideals you’ve built up in your own head. Sure, for some people the solution IS to get up at 5am while the house is quiet and do your hour plus of yoga and meditation practice then. But if it makes you feel sick and exhausted doing that – find the way which suits you!
Around 11am, I also went to the gym for 45mins – 5-10mins cardio on a cross-trainer then a programme of different free weight lifting, weight machines, side lunges and squat steps with a resistance band. I’ve known for a long time it’s good to include regular strength training in your programme of physical exercise – at any age, but particularly as you get older – but it was hard to build this in to my previous life on Skye. I took advantage of our move to Nairn and having more free time than I’d had in years to book a few one-to-one sessions with personal trainers who are yoga teachers as well as gym instructors (Russell Deacon and Laura Ross). Again, occasionally investing in expertise and one-to-one sessions is well worth it. Every time I’m in the gym, I see folk doing things with really poor technique and I wonder, given that they’ve paid a gym membership and are spending all that time in the gym, why they wouldn’t want to invest a little more, to ensure they are working effectively. It was important to me that the personal trainers I saw had a thorough understanding of yoga, and where my strengths and limitations were likely to be (e.g. there is not a lot of pulling/back body strength development in yoga). I’ve never really fancied working out in a gym, which is why I hadn’t make it a priority, and to be honest I still don’t love my personal practice sessions there – but I do love feeling my increase in strength, and knowing I’m helping maintain my muscle mass and bone density as I approach 50. The UK government guidelines on physical activity, updated in Sept 2019, advise adults to do strength-based exercise at least twice a week.
I also parked the car about 10mins walk from the gym, so I could get some fresh air, sunshine and a gentle cardio warm-up and cool-down before and after my gym session. I would usually try to do some yoga stretches at the end of a gym session, and definitely enjoy finishing off that way, but I didn’t have time today. Again, I feel – do what you can, don’t abandon your practice altogether if you can’t make it “perfect”, don’t feel guilty if you can’t do what you’d ideally like to do!
Thursday. I did my half hour of 15mins meditation, 15mins physio from 9am again. One of the unexpected benefits of not being able to establish a ‘same time, same place, every day’ meditation routine is that I’ve learned more about my own patterns and habits. I nearly always find it very much harder to settle and focus during a morning meditation – my mind is racing ahead into the day. Evening meditation often feels nicer, but arguably I need that seated practice in the mornings – I think it can calm me down and set me up for the day, even if my thoughts are all over the place during the actual 15mins.
I was teaching Pilates later in the morning, so once I’d set up the studio, I spent another 15mins doing a related Pilates warm-up before the class participants arrived. Then around half 4, at home, I spent about 10mins running through some foam roller exercises I learned at the training course I was on for 10hrs last weekend – for my own benefit, and also with a view to including them in a Pilates class soon.
Friday. I have an early start on Fridays. The alarm goes off at 6.15am and I have to leave the house – looking reasonably smart & professional! – by 7am in order to teach a drop-in yoga class from 7.20-8.20am. There is no way I personally could happily get up any earlier in order to do a personal practice before that, and it is anyway a gently dynamic class which always includes a standing warm-up section which I do along with class members. So I always feel I have had a good all-over mobilisation by the end of the hour. I was also doing a private tuition yoga session with a small group later in the morning, and I feel that’s enough yoga asana for one day. I did my half hour of physio exercises and seated meditation later in the afternoon.
Saturday. I REALLY didn’t feel like it today, but with the self-bribe of a coffee and scone at one of our favourite cafes afterwards, and the support and company of my husband, I made it to the gym around 9.30am, where I did a similar workout to Wednesdays, for 50mins. Although I was slightly longer in the gym, I did a bit less – fewer reps and a lighter weight for one of the exercises – due to the way I was feeling. I reckon it is much better to get there, notch what you do back a little, and feel better for going, than to skip it altogether, or go and do something that is so hard it puts you off altogether.
The happy smile of someone who successfully bribed herself to go to the gym.
I missed out my post-gym stretches AGAIN, but these were substituted with a walk, a shower and then a longer (beach) walk later in the morning. I also did some off-mat yoga in the form of an hour’s gardening – lots of low squats! See Katy Bowman’s article with tips on how to garden in ways that make it a positive workout rather than an injury risk.
I’ve not really said much about walking in this post, but with two large dogs, I do walk a fair amount daily. One of the dogs is quite an old lady now and likes to walk slowly, so I can’t pretend the bulk of my walking gives me any kind of cardio workout! Last November we moved further from the town centre, and I notice as a result, I’m driving more and walking less than when everything (shops, classes, gym, etc.) was within 10mins walk or less. Now that it’s getting lighter, and dryer, I’ll be aiming to walk more – or perhaps get my old bicycle sorted out and roadworthy again, now that I’m in a very cycling-friendly area.
I did my half hour physio and meditation in the early evening.
Sunday. I was teaching Pilates from 3.30-4.30 and 5-6pm, so I did about half an hour’s warm-up personal practice beforehand. I chose to run through the sequence I’m planning to do in a fortnight’s time when I co-lead the asana session at the Yoga Scotland AGM. I skipped my physio, partly because I felt physically quite tired and also because I knew the routine was overdue being updated, and that I’d be seeing the sports physio to do just that in an hour long appointment the next day. I did my 15mins seated meditation practice in the evening.
In conclusion… This post was drafted only a month ago: I can see the post-gym photo in Café 112 was taken on the 7th of March. What a lot has changed since then. I hope you are all well. I’ll post again later this month to share my personal practice during ‘lockdown’, including free online resources I’ve drawn on which you might like to try yourself. Having a daily movement and meditation practice is certainly making a huge difference to how I am feeling and coping. Take care, Catherine
Catherine McCabe Yoga 